It takes me awhile to gain my bearings back. I might be coming down with a fever or something. I’ve spent too much time sitting here, even feeling this weak I need to go check on both portals. The one with Gobber and Leaf should be the safest and she had the majority of my tears… I still get the feeling of fear from maybe Leaf getting infected. I know it’s extremely unlikely but I’ll check that one first.

I go through the portal and see a scene of brutality in front of me. The infected guard is… Alive, at least he is alive but… Gobber must have cut off both of his arms and legs to stop him from attacking. From what I can guess he did turn but he’s already been cured and Leaf is healing one of his arms at the moment… He's not in a good spot right now, Leaf did her best to heal but she can't regenerate limbs like I can. I put him to sleep and numb his entire body with poison before casting regrowth onto his arms and legs.

I look for the adventurers but don’t see them. I look up and see that they are hurriedly climbing up the ropes leading out of here. They must have been at the bottom when he turned and saw Gobber viciously cut him to pieces. Gobber chimes up now.

“Master… Your arm. What caused this?”

“Leon came back and went insane… It’s fine now but it cost me my arm for a month or so.”

Losing my arm just as the war is about to start is a huge problem… If I can’t keep my men safe because of this… I just hope it doesn’t affect me too much. Well, it seems that things are wrapping up here. I need to check the other portal now. Going through the portal… I’m greeted with another brutal sight.

My men surround several villagers who have been beaten to within inches of their lives. Some others are locked in place by rock traps or buried up to their heads in the ground… Most of them have cloth shoved in their mouths and looking at each of their expressions, I can tell that a few of them are on the verge of passing out from fear. Only a single one is a ghoul. I look at Green who finally says.

“Well, I cured as many as I could but these dumb fucks kept getting infected so I had to beat the shit out of a few of them. I put a few in the ground but they started screaming and crying so I shoved some of our men's socks in their mouths to shut them up.”

With one still infected I need to cry again to cure him… I don’t think I can right now. I don’t know this man. I feel nothing for him. I send one of the men back through the portal to get the remaining tears to cure him. We cure the ghoul, I try to calm the townsfolk down but after everything that happens it is going to take a few months before things get back to normal for them.

Many of these villagers aren’t strong or capable at fighting. Most of the good strong men of this village have left towards the war front. The few that could actually fight, they’re in awful shape from trying to fight the ghoul or Green. I do my best to heal everyone while I send the rest of the guards through the portal. A single man stands out as being important in this town and that would be the alchemist.

Alchemy is a fairly rare job for people to have. Just finding someone with it outside of a major city is extremely rare. I feel bad for these people. At least a tiny amount since it is our fault. I send Green through the portal and burn the scroll. This is mainly a ploy to get them to feel safer that we can’t just pop by when we feel like it. I’m going to place a scroll nearby when I leave just in case I do need to come back here.

I talk with him for a short amount of time. His name is Augustus. Some of the villagers give me a look like they want to attack me. It wont end well for them. Augustus must pick up on it because he sends them away. We mainly discuss recipes for a few minutes. I decide to show him some of my spare pills. The potion recipe for regeneration is very expensive, requiring somewhat rare materials. The pill recipe on the other hand uses three common herbs so it will cut the cost of keeping the men in the village healthy for as long is the alchemist makes them. I decide to teach him transmutation if he wants to learn.

For some reason I feel like it will be a smart move to. Not many of my men showed interest in alchemy so I don’t have any aspects of learning anything from them since they only make potions and pills that they already know the recipes for. If I teach this person he’s most likely going to experiment heavily with his new knowledge of pills and transmutation and he could easily learn something and if I come back he could teach it to me. I need to start planting seeds for myself in the future to continue to grow.

I go over everything, I teach him everything I possibly can about transmutation and I also teach him enchanting. He quickly grasps everything I teach him, besides a few of my smarter generals he seems to pick it up at an unreasonably fast pace. Something clicks in his brain and he runs over to the table and starts writing ingredients down on a piece of paper. He ignores me as he shuffles around his house grabbing things before exiting to talk to a guard. I only hear parts of the conversation but he is sending out an adventurers guild quest to bring back certain ingredients.

This might not ever pay off for me but it has made this man extremely happy at the very least. He asks a very interesting question.

“Is it better to do smaller, easier enchants or more powerful ones to increase my enchanting job?”

“I’ve never really tested it myself. I believe the easier enchants would work better earlier on until you get higher.”

He pulls out a sack of potatoes and starts enchanting them. He asks a few more questions like what happens if you enchant food. I’ve tried it myself, it just isn’t efficient enough to do so. Enchanting food might empower someone for a very short time and if they had eaten enough enchanted food they might get mana poisoning. He also asked a question that got me thinking more about how I craft gear in the future.

It was about enchanting the material of something you plan to make. Would it be more or less time consuming. It would be less time consuming to enchant larger portions of materials to make equipment but it would come at the cost of quality. I wouldn’t take this shortcut with my own or my armies equipment but for equipment I planned on selling almost no one would be able to tell the difference.

It strikes me as odd the questions he’s asking. He wasn’t even surprised when I taught him a new job. His mind immediately went to questioning it, trying to learn as much in as short of a time as possible. It reminds me of me when I was young… Being able to question everything and all the freedom of getting stronger without having anything to worry about but living. I miss it sometimes but it makes me want to go back and question every single class and job I have and see how I can improve it.

I leave Augustus to his new training. I walk out of town and get a few more wary glances from some of the guards. I take a good look at the two gate keepers now. One is very young, he's wearing hand me down armor two sizes to big for him. The other is a very elderly man. This town is so understaffed they might have not even been able to defend themselves from a group of goblins at this point. Any threat could wipe this town off the map like what happened with my home town…

I feel somewhat unwary for them but I’ve wasted too much time here already. There is still so much to do today and I need to prioritize what is more important right now. I get to a safe location where no one will find the scroll and teleport back. I have to deal with a few more problems since I had been gone for a few days and today is the day that I should have the new men to train before the war starts.

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I finish up giving orders to my men at the fortress before heading to the capital. I arrive at the castle entrance and ask one of the men to let me in. I wait while the guard goes and checks to see if I’m allowed in and after waiting for almost an hour he comes back. He takes me to one of the generals who sends me to another. It’s the one I had problems with during the meeting, the smartass. He said he handled it personally. He lets out a little chuckle that makes me feel like he did something nefarious… I'll just have to see.

He sends me outside the city to speak with a lieutenant there to take me to the men I’m going to train. I meet the lieutenant and he gives me a strange look when I mention what I’m there for. He eyes my arm repetitively as he guides me to the men. I can tell that he doesn’t think I have the capability to train the men. At least that is what I think until I see the men, then my opinion changes to that of a look of pity.

The men he’s picked out for me are below the standard of men in this army. This groups appears to be farmers and villagers who've come to the war to try and earn some money and make a name for themselves. A quick glance and I can tell that none of the other generals would even want these men under them. If they did have to use them, they would most likely use them as fodder. Most are sickly, skinny and not very well off. I doubt many have their second class yet. That will help out in the long run for creating the perfect group. A few do show potential. I walk up to the strongest looking person I can see.

“You look like someone the other generals might consider to take in as a soldier, so I don’t understand why you’re here.”

He picks his teeth with a knife. I’m on the verge of thinking he isn’t going to respond when he finally says.

“A bunch of us were prisoners. We're going to get set free as long as we participate in this war.”

I glance around and now notice some guards posted around the entirety of the group. Judging by the scared looks of some of the men and the size of the group. I’d say the entire group is about three thousand people and maybe 20% are criminals. He eyes me over before saying.

“Heh, if you’re going to be the one leading... I might just have to kill you and make a break for it.”

I eye him now. He’s a bigger guy, probably 6 foot 5 inches (1.7 meters) 300 pounds (136 kilograms)of muscle. He would be a threat to any normal human. I’ve been through more than most people go through in an entire lifetime so I can tell the difference in our strength immediately. He might look like a threatening person to anyone but to me he looks like someone who couldn’t fight evenly with any of the men in my army, let alone one of my generals or me. I ask him.

“So what did you go to prison for?”

“Rape and murder.”

There is no hesitation in his answer. I can tell he’s lying but questioning him now doesn’t help my situation. I can't let the prisoners do whatever they like. Not only would they ruin the training I’m going to be putting them through, they might try to do something stupid like make a break for freedom. I give him the offer.

“Anyone who doesn’t want this training, who doesn’t want to be here. You’re more than welcome to leave… Unless you’re a criminal, then I’ll let you do whatever you want if you can beat me in a hand to hand fight.”

The man standing before me looks closely to me now. Perhaps he is trying to intimidate me. He lets out a little chuckle before saying.

“You’re going to fight us one after another? Even if you can manage to beat me you’d still have at least fifty more fights to win. Besides, you only have one arm but I have these two giant ones.”

He flaunts himself and flexes in front of me, trying to intimidate me. It takes a lot of will power not to burst out laughing at how transparent he is to me. I’m going to use him as an example for anyone else stupid enough to challenge me.

“We’ve talked enough. If you think you can beat me then come at me.”

He looks confused, how can this young child be so confident against someone so much bigger than him. Just me actually challenging him has him so flustered to the point where he almost doesn’t know what to do.

“I’m being serious. We could fight and I might hurt you or even worse. Are you really sure that you want to fist fight anyone who doesn’t want to be here?”

“Stop wasting my time. If you want to go then fight me, if you try to run I’ll chase anyone down and kill you before you can make it past the guard line. If you want your freedom you’ll have to prove you’re stronger than me or train under me until this war starts.”

“Seriously? Do you not see the difference in our sizes? I’ll crush you like a grape if I were to fight you at full strength. This is your last chance to back down!”

I start undoing the belts on my leather armor to remove it while saying.

“You’re more than welcome to start whenever you like. I’m just taking off this armor so that it doesn’t get covered in blood. I've already ruined one set today and I don't plan on ruining another... I would actually recommend you attack me before I’m ready, that’s the best chance you will have...”

I wait as I pull leather case over my head for a few seconds.

“Since it seems you’re going to wait, I apologize for this taking so long. I’ve just recently lost my arm so normal activities like removing clothing takes longer than it normally would.”

It takes me another few seconds to strip out of my armor and shirt. I thought about playing with him, dragging this out but I’m going to vent out some frustration on this person. I raise my single hand up in front of my face before saying.

“This is your final chance to come at me first.”

I wait another few seconds. I can see him waver in his decision. He says.

“Fine! If you want this so badly don’t blame me when you end up hurt kid.”

He puts up his fists like he’s ready to fight. I’m slowly feeling sorry for this person who bluffed against the wrong person. He is all looks, I doubt he is very strong even in comparison to an average human. The more I look at him the more of a noble upbringing shows through. His clothing is tailor made to his big size.

He bursts towards me. I’ve spent a huge portion of my life learning fighting styles, constantly working towards getting stronger at all cost. Even without relying on any of my skills or magic, even without both of my arms no one here stands a chance against me. I rush towards him now and close the distance between us before he can even react. I see his eyes shoot open in shock at my speed as my fist swings around and catches him in the head. WHAM! He’s sent flying sideways towards a few more men.

He slams into the group who happened to be standing close by. They get thrown back as well, I held back but that still might have been too much and he might have died from it. I move close enough to check and see if he’s alive. One of the men I knocked down swings wildly at me. I easily dodge his fist and throw a quick jab into him. It wasn’t anything special but it was still enough to double him over in pain.

Another one of the men tries to attack me. He grabs around my neck from behind but I crush one of his fingers turn around and put pressure on it so he kneels down and kick him in the head. Another jumps on my back. I’m getting sick of this. I turn into a dragon and fly into the air with the man still on my back. I fly towards the ground and suddenly stop just before I hit the ground, sending him flying off my back and landing hard. I scream.

“Do you realize how much I have to hold back so I don’t accidentally kill you fools!? You all should be begging to be trained by me. How much do you have to be given before you realize how lucky you are. No one else wants you, you are fodder to them.”

I hear a familiar voice behind me now.

“Well, even if no one else will, someone will take in these lost causes.”

I turn to see if the voice matches and it does. It’s Lance, he’s standing near the older general he was sitting beside during the war meeting. He gives off a grandfather type vibe to me. Lance speaks again.

“I told my men to come get us the moment you showed up. Good thing I did, you’d have scared all these men to death if I didn’t show up to interrupt you."

He's shouting very loud for me and some of the men nearby to hear him, he continues.

"Are you going to come down here and talk to us or stay up there yelling at these people all day.”

He’s only joking but I do listen to him. I land and change back into a human. I try to explain myself.

“Yea sorry about that. A lot happened today and I’m just venting some frustration out on these poor people.”

He's still talking very loudly for others to overhear our conversation. He laughs until he notices my missing arm. He stands still for a few seconds as it sinks in before asking.

“What happened?”

“Leon attacked me and got my arm. I had him cut if off then he tried to kill himself… He was dead but I cried on him and learned that I have healing tears. So pretty average day I guess.”

“That sounds like pretty rough… Wow, even knowing you that sounds like a bad day. You hear that people!? He just lost his arm today and still took it easy on you. If I lost my arm I’d definitely kill the first person who challenged me.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“I volunteered my troops to guard the prisoners if they try to run. I also thought that while they’re here you could maybe teach them? Oh right, take a look at this.”

He hands me a piece of paper. I quickly read the first few lines. 1237 warriors, 608 fighters, 201 archers… It looks like a list of every class of his soldiers. There are some notes on the bottom. They read “I’d like you to teach the thousand or so troops without warrior the warrior class. Some of the people who have warrior already should learn fighter and with the last few that have both classes I’d like you to teach them either knight or guardian.”.

It’s a long well thought out list profiling the composition of the men under him… It’s crazy to see how far Lance has come along since he’s left. It doesn’t appear that he’s gotten much stronger but his ability to lead and run large groups is on a completely different level. He walks past me and yells to the people.

“What Kite said about you being unwanted… That’s not true. Anyone who can make it through his training will be guaranteed a spot under me. Anyone who wants to leave is more than welcome to, if you’re a prisoner and wish to leave I’m going to take two fingers from both of your hands as compensation… I am not as forgiving as my friend here.”

He turns back to me.

“With that out of the way, you have control over my men and I’ll do what I can to speed this along.”